Q. How did you get to where you are today?
The RBA had a really good program where you could work, and they would support your study part-time. I was lucky enough to get a scholarship from the bank to finish my studies full-time.
When I finished, I was very fortunate to get what was my dream job in financial markets. I spent about 10 years in financial markets, moving through the different functions, and I also worked in our market operations. Then I decided to take an opportunity to move into risk management, which I thought was just a wonderful job.
Then something came completely out of left field. When Philip Lowe was made the governor, he called me in and suggested that I move to the head of banking.
It was a tremendous opportunity to move into banking and payments, and that role led me to where I am now.
Q: Can you give us a snapshot of what your division at the RBA does and how it connects with the broader financial system?
The area I work in is one most people don’t know much about, but you interact with our services almost every day. We oversee three key functions. First, we provide transactional banking for the Australian government – processing payments for Centrelink, Medicare, child support, Defence, ASIC, the ATO… if you receive a government payment, it’s likely come through us. We handle around 350 million outbound payments a year, many to people who urgently need them, so reliability is essential.
Second, we operate the central infrastructure for the payment system – the rails that settle obligations between banks. If you pay someone who banks elsewhere, that transaction runs across our systems… including the fast payments infrastructure that can process transactions in under a second.
Third, we design and distribute Australia’s banknotes… and work to ensure cash remains available for those who need it.
Q. What does a typical day or week look like for you?
We start every day with a meeting where the policy staff collect all the things that have happened overnight. We call that meeting the 8:50 meeting because, funnily enough, it’s at 8:50! It’s a really good opportunity for all to get together, set up the day with new information.
Then we get on with the rest of our day. For me, that probably means that I’ll start with team meetings… I have over 300 people in my team, so I really want to get to know what they like about their jobs, what they’d like to change, what their pain points are, and how we might help them address those.
We have an enormous amount of different committees, mainly steering committees, some of which I chair, some of which I sit on, to really guide that work and those investments, which could be uplifting capability. I am also the executive sponsor for the Gender Equity (ERG), so I have some responsibilities there.
And I have a few staff that I mentor, and so I might meet regularly with them for coffee to see what’s going on in their world.
Q. How do you find the confidence to embrace moments that are outside of your comfort zone?
It’s happened many times in my career. The first time was when the opportunity came to be the head of risk management. At the time, I was working three days a week. I had caring responsibilities. My husband had a really big job. That opportunity came along, and I thought, “No, not really, I don’t think I’m really ready for that.”
A senior colleague came up to me and said, “You really need to apply for this job. Don’t worry, you’ll just make it work. We’ll just find a way to make it work.” Then I applied for it, and then I got it…
I would not have done that at all had this colleague not suggested it. So, I think it’s great to have people around you to push you.
Q. How do you approach decision making when the stakes are so high and the impact is so broad?
That’s a great question. I try to have absolute clarity on what we’re trying to achieve. In a policy space, there’s many different avenues you can go down, there’s many different stakeholders, there’s always trade-offs when you are making policy decisions. So, I think it’s really important to be clear with your team what exactly you’re trying to achieve. When you have that clarity, it becomes much easier to navigate through the noise…
The other thing is to be really clear on the trade-offs. If I do this, I don’t do that. If I do this, this will impact this group. Can I accept that? Do I need to change something?
The other thing is seek counsel. Ask people for their opinion. It’s hard for everyone to know everything all the time, so it’s really important to find a group or someone who is an expert in the area and ask their counsel. Run a straw man past them. Think about how it might go, and you’ll get different perspectives.
Q. How do you manage a high-pressure job?
I like to surround myself with people that give me energy. They don’t have to be high-energy people, but when I talk to them, they make me feel more constructive – they pull me out if I’m in a bit of a rut. I find that really helps me.
The other thing that I really find helpful is finding a tiny little part of every day to do something that you really love. Even if it’s 10 minutes where you listen to a song you really like, listen to a podcast, read a book. It doesn’t have to be hours. It can just be a little snippet.
I really love running, so I try to go for a run every day because then I always think to myself, “Well, that was a rough day, but that doesn’t matter because I got a run in the morning.”
If you take a little bit of time for yourself and reset yourself, then you can get into the next day and help deal with some of the issues you’re dealing with.
Q. What advice would you give to women in finance who aspire to be in senior leadership?
Say yes to opportunities. Think about what each opportunity can give you as you move through your career. Movements in careers – it’s not a straight line. You don’t go straight up. You zig and you zag, and sometimes you might even think you’ve gone a little bit backwards, and then you move a great leap forward.
But if you say yes to opportunities, you will always learn something new. You’ll learn something about yourself. You’ll learn something about the subject matter that you work with. You’ll find that when you want to move on to that next big step, you have such a breadth of experience and a wealth of things to offer that next company or that next opportunity that you want to take advantage of.
So, I would say yes.
